Lore/Story The Fiosians Want Their Castle Back: A New Sellan History of Gavel

ne Fios il an ti Éllan d'Aensaure Sento:
N'ITAESSÉLL IXRE LUDIEHI​

Hi! I'm hmtn, and this is an AUish timeline fanfic. It's a set of materials documenting the history of Gavel as seen through its dominant culture - the Sellans.

One might recognize this alternate name for the Villagers from the wonderful work of @Trashiejunkyard whence I borrowed it. But beyond that, our two worldbuilding projects aren't connected to one another. I just thought that the name was nice. You might see other nods to Wartorn in this timeline, on occasion, but again they're just nods.

This timeline is a compilation of several different texts written by Corkian scholars, for typically human audiences. Most of the source materials were originally written in Modern Standard Sellan (Si'é Sélliesen), a common lingua-franca in Human-Sellan relations. However, I frequently used Corkish Fruman editions instead, since they would often contain more explanations for various bits of jargon.

The timeline is described as "AUish" because it is, technically, canon compliant. In practice, material is likely going to contradict canon all the time. However, this history is diagetic, and often unreliable. Forget contradicting canon, different sources will often contradict each other.

So there's a large error box when it comes to determining the "absolute" truth of this timeline. Readers are advised to use their own discretion. The only "absolute" canon of this work it takes place in a world where someone, somewhere, wrote down these historical sources.

Also, this whole project started because of my conlanging, so I'll occasionally interrupt the timeline to talk about the languages. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say, I've got an interest.​

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Table of Contents
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5: The Gathering of the Séll
These are only predictions. The list below is subject to change as new chapters are released.

1. The Gylian Anarchy (Below)
2. The Loss of Castle Fios
3. Blackfire Stoneheart
4. Beloved Companion, Part One
5. Beloved Companion, Part Two
6. The First Breath of Gavel
7. Jésen and its Dialects
8. On The Warring States
9. Seven Princes to Midnight
10. On the Two Gylias
11. An Komoscivanna
12. The Gathering of the Séll

6: Lords of Mace and Crown
[TBA]

7: The Return of the Prince
[TBA]

8: Grand Marshals of the Eastern Wind
[TBA]

9: The Seventh Sunset
[TBA]

10: Guardians of the Great Forge
[TBA]

11: Emperors from the Endless Lake
[TBA]

12: The Last Blueflower
[TBA]

Appendices:

• On Pronunciation & Romanization
• Aregindenna Siosaries, in the original High Gavellian

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- A Gal Liassin Siosfios -
THE GYLIAN ANARCHY
​

I. In Medias Res (In the Middle of Things)
Thus it was that the Elders were cast down, and that, in their dying wrath, the splendors of the Fourth Age were made to follow them. The Heart of the World would be forever lost, hidden and broken, remembered only in the hearts of Sellans and in scant drops of holy blood.

Regardless of the historicity of Sellan myth, it is undeniable that a great disaster befell the land, and that it was put to waste. In the heart of the Séll, what is now the lake-lands of Gylia (though it is said that the lakes had not been there before), the former slaves of the Elves descended into madness and barbarism. They were the best of Gavel.

The Fifth Age would struggle to be born through centuries of such blood and strife. The length of this dark age is unknown, for all manner of writing and knowledge would disappear during the Gylian Anarchy. Traditionally, Sellan historians claim that bonds of friend and family were shattered in an epoch of suffering.

However, it's important to remember that much of the historical record of the 5th Age was written and maintained by Comécivaen. The throne and its servants had great incentive to embellish the horrors of the time before imperial rule. "The empire may be harsh, and sometimes cruel," one could imagine a cleric saying, "but it is better than the alternative."

Yet even in the modern understanding, the devastation of the Gylian Anarchy is a matter of degree, not presence. For one, the concrete historical record of the Sellans only begins in its tail end. For another, these earliest written records from the Séll unanimously bear the perspectives of a people who have known suffering and strife for generations, a people who had known that the world before them was a greater place, a place that they would never see, a place that they pined for nonetheless.

II. Du Sipete Obiause (The Long Quiet)
The chaos of the transition would leave an unknown span of years between the Twilight of the Elves and a formal declaration of the 5th Age. Traditionally, Sellan historians label this intermezzo as part of the latter, numbering them as negative years of the 5th.

By this count, the oldest verifiable pieces of written Sellan records began to appear in the final century before 5A 1. The ornate alphabetic hand in which they were written was rarely named, but is called "High Elvish" when it was. However, the language that this script was used to write was not the High Elvish claimed by the south. The language, too, was unnamed, with Sellans referring to it at most as Inne Jésen, "Our Speech."

Its speakers regarded it as a broken, bastardized dialect of the High Elvish spoken by their former masters, a tongue also called Liesyu. Use of "proper" Elvish tongue - though not its writing - seemed considered beyond the pale by this time's residents of Gylia. Its speakers, and these earliest Sellan scribes, used their tongue to record what they regarded as a broken, bastardized imitation of governance in a world without Elvish rule.

III. On the Sogosellans
There was a notable exception to this trend, however. The mountains of Southern Gylia, long a stronghold of the Elders, remained home to a number of Sellans loyal to the Elves, no matter that the Elves had since been scoured from the world.

They maintained High Elvish, apart from their vernacular, and maintained the Elvish faith, which had been scorned by the other Sellans. They did not maintain an exceptional amount of lost knowledge, however, and their earliest records post-date those of their northern and eastern kin. These southern Elf-Friends called themselves the Anis, "Light-Fearers," while the rest would call them Sógosellan, "Mountain Civilized Folk," or Sogósellan, "Southern Civilized Folk," after the land in which they lived, which would be called Sogosell during the 5th Age.

IV. Nac Neure Du Possa (The Mortality of Mortality)
Regardless of tongue, the first records of Gylia, and Sogosell, and other lands where Sellans dwelt, would reveal lands of petty chiefdoms and clans. The Sellan world, in the tail end of the Gylian Cataclysm, would be dominated by fortified villages and strongholds, where dwelt a Lord and their clan, who commanded warriors and collected tax from the great mass of farmers in their dominion.

It was a quintessentially feudal system, albeit one not yet dominated by any great princes or kings. Instead, these petty fiefs engaged in constant low-level warfare with one another, and there was little difference between a petty lord and a bandit. Even the greatest landlords of this era could, it seemed, not guarantee defence against depredation, and great hosts tied to nothing would periodically ravage the Séll. Any great trade, or collection of wealth and knowledge, was nearly impossible.

For generations, this had been the world. It is no wonder that the Sellans of this time and the times that would follow would consider it a dark age.

But a dark age cannot last forever. These earliest records of the Séll describe conquest and consolidation. Petty chiefs became great chiefs, and then great lords, and then "princely" lords, called Ohariex, or "Prince."

V. On the Oldest Kanderites
During this time, Sellan culture would also spread north and west out of Gylia, into the Lands of the Stone-Folk, the modern regions of Kander and the Gel riverbasin. The land had yet to decay at this time, though it had also yet to see the full splendor of the Younger Elves. The Stone-Folk had not been nearly so ruined by the Twilight of the Elves as the Sellans had been, and it is said that they preferred to live simply, and in peace.

But then came the Sellans. By the end of the 5th Age, the Stone-Folk would be extinct as a culture, though much of their way, habits, and blood would survive in the north, among the Sellans of Kander. There was no single disaster that triggered their decline, and indeed the Kanderites (it is here noted that Kander was a late 5th age term for "stone") regard this substrate as their truest ancestors. They were Sellanized, yes, but they remained, and it would be foolish to say that they would not have their due by the end of the 5th Age.

With the alien faith of the Sogosellans in the south, and the distance of the new Kanderites in the north, the previously compact Séll of Gylia would become more stretched and distant than it had already been.

VI. Nildaxassin (On the Spirits and their Shamans)
The final critical piece of the Sellan world in the wake of the Gylian Anarchy would be its shamans, who at this time called themselves the Nildaxassin Order, though they were certainly not so organized. In later times, the Sellan priesthood would come to be called n'Auré. Though such a title is anachronistic for such an ancient time, it will be used for the remainder of this text for the sake of consistency.

The movement that would become n'Auré arose, it would seem, as a backlash to the Elvish faith that the lords of the 4th Age had imposed upon the Sellans. It held to many of the same precepts, but seemed to take great glee in tearing down the beloved icons of the fallen slave-masters.

ON, Lord of Light, the Great Influence, and Master of the Solar Vanguard, was cast from His lofty position atop the world. He was reduced to a hound, a beast, a servant of the Sellan powers, and would begin his thousand-year-march towards irrelevance in the mythology of the Séll.

Countless of those Sellan powers would rise to the fore of sacrifice and ritual. Llo Taextau, Égion-Ctein, Llo Diauros, Beloved Úx, Dana, the Thunder-Dragon Urssúr, and Drinoqu, and countless more. Many would rise and fall over the centuries, but as ON waned, a god here called Tfaiyl Lléfaruno, or simply Tfayl, would gradually establish itself as peak of the Sellan pantheon.

Tfayl, who would eventually be declared a sole universal power, would dominate the monotheistic period of the late Imperial n'Auré, but by this early point had yet to even acquire the position of first-among-equals.

In truth, however, the spirits and gods worshiped by early 5th age Sellan shamans were not the main focus and impact of Sellan religion at this time.

Shamans were the closest thing to a universally-recognized and respected institution of the Séll during the Gylian Anarchy. Even in the south, where the Elvish faith lingered, these early priests were understood to command great and terrible power, and to have a destiny not beholden to the material world.

The shaman class of the early 5th Age, like n'Auré in the 6th, would go to great effort to keep all magical knowledge and ability constrained. For good reason, as well - was is not abuse of magic that held the Sellan people in bondage? Was it not the terrible magic of the corrupted Heart that drove the Elves to decay and ruin? Were there not countless tales, in ages even closer to the Dawn, of reckless sorcery bringing great disaster?

For reasons both religious and very practical, Sellans held and would continue to hold a very dim view of magic, the broad populace thinking it good riddance that it was held under strict lock-and-key by the shamans of the Séll. This would eventually come to pierce n'Auré like a the horn of a Toruto, but not for some time.

No, in this time, the shamans were a neutral, powerful, independent, and highly mobile social class of the Séll. It's unclear when merchant caravans first drew close to them for safety, but it's clear that, by the end of the Gylian Anarchy, the lines between cleric, messenger, and merchant had become so thin as to be effectively erased.

VII. Na Tiure Aneche (On The Coming Days)
The temporal lords and princes were not idle while n'Auré waxed in strength. They continued to feud, and war, conquer one another, and build the earliest states of recorded Sellan history. The Gylian Anarchy came to an end not with a bang, but with a gradual consolidation of the first two Great Estates of the Séll.

The nobility and clergy would be the first two of the Great Estates to form, and the only ones to do so during the 5th age. Their increasing size, power, and cohesion would eventually begin to raise the question, here and there: Was one of them to bring together the shattered Séll?

 

Woah this is awesome! Do you have a description/write up on the language or it’s grammar?

btw if you weren’t aware, there happens to be a relatively active conlanging community in the wynncraft discord (in large part because of the translation work towards Tahkashtel).

 

Thank you! I'll certainly be going into bits of how the languages function here and there, but they're not intended to be the main attraction. I'll leave the detailed writeups for a separate time/document.

For now, I'll note that, while we're in the 5th age, the language used for titles and such (like the ones in the first chapter) will be in Jésen, which will gradually become the main prestige tongue of the era. We'll see the exact circumstances of that in the next few chapters. If you know of an Ancient vs. High Gavellian distinction, then Jésen is on the Ancient side of that, though it's nowhere near the oldest strain of Gavellian. Think of it as a transitional stage, simultaneously an Ancient and High Gavellian.

As we enter the 6th age, we'll be transitioning to d'Inlya. It's a related language, and the dialect of High Gavellian preferred by the Sellan monarchy. The title at the very top of this thread is in d'Inlya; it's the "main" HG of the timeline. Any time I refer to "High Gavellian" without qualification in this thread, I'm probably referring to d'Inlya. Jésen is solid, but d'Inlya is one of the most detailed languages I've ever made, as well as my favourite, so maybe we'll see more details then.

Oh, I'm aware :-) I've always been kind of tangential to that community (I've been gone too long), but CT's work and the community's effort to translate it is inspiring, and part of what kept me so invested in this project for all this time. We've made it! I'm so very happy.

 

hmtn! i havent even read it yet but im so excited

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I love the interpretation that Qira named the Vanguard specifically to piss off religious folks

LANGUAGES? no wonder this has been in the works for so long, you made a full fledged continent with hundreds of years of history and all that entails
I'm very excited for what's to come, and this section was great.

 

I. Thsoliäch Thou (The Place of the Departure)
The northernmost fief of the Elf-Friends was called Fios, named so after the castle and family at its heart. Fios's holdings sat on the middle stretches of what is now called the River Suvaoch, though it was called Aldóron until the early 6th age.

As the name implies, the Aldóron flowed north from the old stronghold of the Elves, both Elder and Younger, spilling out into Gylia and ultimately emptying into the region's namesake lake. Castle Fios was built at the very northern end of Sogosell, in a place where the land's mountains were few, in a place only a handful of leagues south of where the river became wide and meandering, as it entered the Gylia plains proper.

Naturally, their fief made for a popular river-crossing, especially once they built a bridge to ford the Aldóron. This brought the House of Fios much wealth and power, power that they would use to lay their enemies low and exert influence over their neighbours.

It would be vital that they did so. As mentioned earlier, Fios was the northernmost fief controlled by a house of Elf-Friends, thanks to their connection to Sogosell proper upriver. The immediate neighbors of Fios were loyal children of the Séll, one and all, and looked upon the Lords of the River-Toll with barely-disguised contempt. It was, in fairness, a rather steep toll, but perhaps the records indicating as much were biased.

Even the clergy were forced to pay the toll, for they were not the clergy of Fios, and much of the fief's peasantry were Elf-Friends of the north who had fled to this last lonely castle of Sogosell. Thus it was that the town of Fiosqa was built on the western side of the bridge, and thus it was that it would develop a reputation for apostasy towards the Séll, and of unfriendliness to n'Auré.

The feeling was mutual. Though the House of Fios was forced to tolerate the presence of good Sellans, as well as of their ilk upon their fief, they would not forget that these were the people who had laid ON low, and who had slaughtered the Elves, who had laid low the Nightbringer and justly ruled for a thousand years¹.

In the entire history of the Séll, no house would spawn more myths and legends than Fios, nor more notorious figures². But the Lords of the Toll were not yet so great a house, nor would they be, not for quite some time. That in mind, here is the first great tale in the Matter of the West,

- Aegila du Ellan Thios a Siure -
THE LOSS OF CASTLE FIOS​

On one day, of the first days of the Séll, of the last days of the blood-before-the-blood, the House of Fios came to be ruled by the Lord Orisefutisre. He was a weak and capricious fool, squandering the efforts of his ancestors. He spent their gathered coin like water. He wasted the lives of his servants and slaves, and the grain of his peasants on excessive feasting. With no thought, he would give his time and emerald to matters beneath a Lord.

Begged by his advisors to show prudence, he instead raised the tolls upon his bridge, but all this did was run dry his mine of traders. When faced with a treasure from the west, a great medallion of fire, he threw it to his concubine, in full view of the gift-giver. When faced with a treasure from the east, a lyre of the Vindals, and a woman who could play it, he treated her as a minstrel, and forced her to play the songs of her people only as mockery and humiliation.

Thus it was that the House of Fios came to be despised by its people, for they had instead given their love to the dead and accursed. This debauchery and mockery of navoyl was to be their price, but it would be no punishment without a judge.

The reckoning of the Lord Fios began the day that he personally insulted a sage of the faith, forcing him to bow and scrape before a temporal lord for passage. News of this humiliation soon passed to his closest vassals of Fios, pious children of the Séll, who heard this and knew that they could no longer abide the madness and barbarism of their liege.

Rallied by Lord Kaencollva Xintiuch, among the strongest of the Fiosian banners, they marched to their stronghold to do away with the Elf-Friends. The son of Lord Orisefutisre, also called Orisefutisre, and sometimes Stargazer, plead with the banners from the ramparts of Castle Fios. In doing so, he nearly lost his life.

Though Orisefutisre the Younger had assumed it would come to siege, his Lord father instead wished to destroy enemies in the field. His enemies, who outnumbered them ten-fold. Thus it was that Orisefutisre the Younger knew that Fios was lost. The castle, the fief, the last senses of his father.

As he secreted away in the night, the last of the Fios-in-Fios gazed back upon the castle, and saw that his father had opened the gates, and saw the fire, and heard the screaming of Sellans. He laid a curse, then, upon the entire line of Kaencollva, such that they would forevermore know misfortune, struggle, and exile, as they had brought onto him with this treachery.

For a moment, Orisefutisre (no longer the Younger, for he knew his father was to be dead by morning) was faced with a choice. Should he go south? No, not if he wished for Fios to survive. To the masses of Elf-Friends in Sogosell, Fios was little better than their apostate banners.

East, then? Orisefutisre had heard tell, from many, that the eastern mountains were home to a witch of great power, who could grant almost any wish, if at a ruinous price. But Orisefutisre did not know what, exactly, the witch could take from him.

III. Ac Och Atiotier (The First Exile)
Orisefutisre, along with the few Sellans he could trust, traveled north along the eastern banks of the river, making towards the river-marches of the Greatest Lake. They passed through the lands of strange peoples, with strange dress, customs, and manners of speech. They did not pass in peace, not quite, but it was not a time of great strife. Twenty Sellans were enough to appear a danger to bandits and a curiosity to lords.

For weeks, they rounded the lake, eventually passing into the Lands of the Vara. There, the curiosity of the south (for the Lords of Iron had never before seen Sogosellans) entertained the court for several weeks, and Orisefutisre began to understand the heart of the Lady of the Lyre, who had played in his father's court.

They passed further to the east, beyond the bounds of the Séll, through the gates of Thianus and into the lands of the Dwarves. They saw few, on their journey, for the Dwarves were ever-reclusive and mistrustful, and no friends to the Sogoséll. Instead, their party made merry with a band of Hobgoblins, with whom they defeated the dread Goliath Pret-Paokorh, and who bestowed upon Orisefutisre an enchanted dagger³.

Finally, they came to the north-east, home of the Witch. It was a dark place, a cave in a canyon, and Orisefutisre dismounted his horse, and bade his Sellans to wait outside. He had been made to know that he must enter alone.

A great spider laid in wait, guardian of the cave. If not for the flames of his dagger, Orisefutisre would not have survived the hour. Traveling deeper into the cave, he finally fell into its heart. There, he found a still pool, and a woman, once again strumming the lyre that she had played in his father's court.

"Rin Pondaur," said Orisefutisre, and the Witch agreed, for she had seen his heart, and the heart of his family, and had watched him slay her guardian, and was in the mood to strike him down. Instead, she asked him what her price would be, for strength and treasure to restore his House.

"I know not the limits of your power, but I offer everything," said Orisefutisre. "Everything I have left. I know that is not much, but I will even offer my life, should it return Fios to glory."

And Orisefutisre beheld the Witch, truly, for the first time. And the Witch smiled. It was not a kind smile.

IV. Aregindenna Siosaries (To Curse A Fool)

​

"You seek a way to return to Séll⁴. I am She Who Is The Way, and the affairs of your house are not beyond my power, for very little is. I remember you, Stargazer, and your kindness, and do not blame you for the foolishness of your father, but I must blame your house."

"I shall not destroy you today, Stargazer, for you are yet to make good on your name, nor shall I destroy your house, which is forfeit to me, and yet to fulfill my purpose."

And she said "I shall curse you, and your line."

"So long as you wish Fios to see the next dawn, you and your line are exiled from Levtus. Thus it will be that but one of your line shall ever again sit the throne your father lost. They shall die, on that day, upon that seat, and so shall end the line of Fios."

Then it was that she gave to Stargazer three small stones, hewn from the blood of the First Dragon. They were to be the seal of her curse. So long as House Fios held at least one, its power would linger upon the Séll.

"Should you wish to lay down my curse, and return to the whims of fate unknown: Cast them aside! Cast them into flame, sky, and lake. Cast them to the places of their birth, for it is where they dearly wish to return, and to properly Decay. They will leave you, if you do not guard them, and guard them jealously. "

And Orisefutisre looked at the three gems, dark and red and clotted, each the size of his thumb-nail, and understood her curse. That he would never again see his home. That he would never again see his old bed, or the people of Fiosqa, or the hills and walls on which he played, or the river bank where he sat and smoked. He would never again lay eyes on the grave of his mother, nor the mockery given to his father, and he would never sit upon the throne that had been his birth-right.

The tolls that had made his House rich were forever closed to him, and to all of his line. He would never live to see the traitor House Kaencollva brought to heel. And yet, if he but kept three stones, his line would become immortal. He shed three tears, each of blood, which landed atop them, and burned the stones, and burned his hand black.

"Good boy," said the Witch. "But that was my price for Fios, not Stargazer. My price for you shall be so: Your line shall also be mine."

Thus it was that the two were wed, and that House Fios returned to the west in blood and witch-flame, and the daughter of Orisefutisre and the Witch would become the Lord of the South, first Prince of Sogosell, and that their fortunes would greatly wax. When she was ready, Orisefutisre would surrender his throne, and with his wife return to the East. They were never seen again.

V. On the Historicity of this Tale
Though held up as sacrosanct in Lleva, and so unfortunately in Wynn as well, the Matter of the West is well understood to be primarily mythological.

We live in an age of reason, and science. All known principles of temporal magic involve real presence in potential time-lines, and the runic matrices and power sources required to fuel them are steep in cost. No Sellan of the early 5th age could command such power and knowledge, regardless of the Fiosian delusion that they had such a mighty figure in their bloodline. Do they not already have enough of those?

It is the opinion of most of Gylia, as well as this author, that while House Fios was betrayed by their bannermen, and forced out from their original fief (principle of embarrassment), they managed to escape with much of their wealth and resources. Perhaps after an extended campaign, they would eventually regroup in a southern holding, where they would continue their waxing and consolidation. The historical records of any of the regions that Orisefutisre Stargazer passed through never mention such a distinctive party of Sogosellans, and no records in South Gylia describe a dramatic, sudden reappearance of House Fios, simply a gradual swelling of power in their southern holdings.

The House Fios experiencing a loss of their northern, river-tolling fief, surrounded by adherents of a hostile religion, and re-consolidating in the south is a much simpler story than that of a strange woman, simultaneously living in a cave and Castle Fios, distributing prophetic bloodstones. The latter is no basis for any serious historical analysis.

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Author's Notes
1. Or more. The timeline is rather hazy in the wake what Mage Island is nowadays telling us was a freak meteor bombardment. Don't take this at face value, they change their leading theory every six months.
2. Save perhaps Dulia.
3. The Stargazer's Blade (av Elléx Tiesaurjes do Vuebxenhi) was a real piece of Fiosian regalia throughout the 5th and early 6th ages. However, it would be lost during the second of Eilya's Desolations.
4. This term is often translated as "Village," but usually doesn't refer to a literal village, which is instead a small Séllqa (lit. Séll-Settlement). For more information regarding the nature of Séll, see "The Sellan Monomyth," by Kalagan Hast.
5. "Qira" in d'Inlya, though note that this is anachronistic, as d'Inlya didn't yet exist. Due in part to this tale, and tales like it, "Qira" is a stock character in Sellan culture. A woman given the pseudonym 'Qira' is a witch of unknown name and terrible power. The moniker has been given to multiple historical individuals fitting the archetype, including several specifically resident in the western Canyon.

Translator's Notes
I lied! The title for Part I is in High Elvish (Liesyu), the High Gavellian language preferred by the Elf-Friends of the 5th age. I figured it was fitting. Liesyu is related to Jēsen, but not actually very closely! It's the final fruit of a whole mess of 4th age Elvish dialects that stopped being relevant when the Aldór got collectively murked as a civilization. The Sellans... will not be apologizing for that. Actually, it didn't even happen. It's myth. But if it wasn't, then they deserved it.

I've mentioned this on and off in other places, but please don't take anything that the Sellans say about themselves or anyone else at face value. Despite living on a continent with (neo)-Elves, they're the true centre of Gavellian arrogance and disdain. Seriously, it's like a compulsion for them.

 

Qira's a widow
Wait
That's actually quite fitting
Double meanings, am I right?

 

;-)
fun fact: eight is the main number associated with "death/danger/misfortune" in sellan culture. triple threat

Keep in mind that this is obvious fiction, though, even from an in-setting perspective. As well as that the title "Qira" is going to get applied to multiple witches of wildly varying appearance and behavior, over millennia. They're not all the same person. Probably. Hopefully.

 

Extra Translator's Notes
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On Pronunciation
The title of this thread is written in d'Inlya, but d'Inlya has a very... out of date spelling system. In a lot of ways, it's still pretending that it's Jésen, despite the centuries-long gap between the two languages. According to the Standard Form of High Gavellian promulgated by Her Majesty¹, A.A. Nerari III Cadan, the title Ne Fios il an ti Éllan d'Aensauve Sento: n'Itaeséll Ixre Ludiehi² is properly pronounced as—

[n̩ˈvjəs il ɑ̃.tjeˈʒɑ̃ dɛ̃ˈsov ˈsɛ̃t]
[ni.tæˈseɬ iˌk͡xe lu.ðeˈi]

If you can't read IPA, here's an IPA reader link that I feel didn't mess up too badly, and here are consonant and vowel soundboards for any letters you might not recognize. A tilde above a vowel means that it's nasalized, as in Portuguese direção.

A scuffed anglicization might look something like:

enviOUS eel auntie yay JAUNE dense OAV SENT.
need 'ta SESH eeKAY loo they EE.

While the pronunciation of various words and sentences is a fun tidbit, and I might give them in translator's notes like this one, they're generally not all too important. Thanks to some poor decisionmaking on the part of future generations, various strains of High Gavellian are usually read as if written in the speaker's native language, which means that your first-blush pronunciation of any provided text is accurate to real Sellan practice.

High Gavellian, especially d'Inlya, is a written language far moreso than it is a spoken one. Speaking is left to the various Low Gavellians, which, conversely, are basically never written down.

On Romanization
I've also made the decision not to romanize the letter Laenhi using the traditional acute accent when transcribing Jésen names. The letter didn't yet exist, and its presence to indicate long vowels is a retroactive choice used by more contemporary scribes. Romanization of Laenhi will continue for names and materials from more modern times, such as in the name n'Auré and of the language itself.

Contemporary spelling conventions, such as HRC, Kaande letter-doubling, and Laenhi itself, will be introduced to chapters around the time of their invention. As spelling standards freeze into place, we'll gradually approach the frozen Cadan-form H.G. of the title, at which point neither I nor the Sellans will ever update our spelling again.

Tolkien is rolling in his grave, I know, but the linguistic aspects of this project are supposed to be front-and-center, so I feel that it would be fitting for the text to reflect real changes in how people write.

Naturally, all writing is done not in the Latin alphabet, but in the High Gavellian one. Through a freak accident of nature, the H.G. script held a 1:1 correspondence to Latin for a brief period during the late 4th age. Thanks to Sellan writing trying to copy this epoch for an unreasonably long time, this leads to easy transcription for much of the 5th age, but things will eventually fall apart.

Time will see the introduction of new letters and ligatures, such as Laenhi, as well as spelling practice informed by Gavel alone, such as 〈kv〉 becoming read as /f/, 〈w〉 as /b/, 〈c〉 being conditionally read as /x/ (an h-like sound, if you're unfamiliar with IPA), and so on. This isn't even taking into account ridiculous historical elements of scribal shorthand, such as the d'Inlya indefinite article 〈K〉 being pronounced [ɑ̃], but scribal shorthand will not be transliterated³.

Sellan orthography through and after the 6th age is a mess. Continuing to faithfully transcribe Gavellian words with an archaic Latin-cipher transliteration instead of a more convenient up-to-date romanization is a convenient way to convey the pain of someone trying to become literate in a Sellan language, e.g. 〈sieihírysieim〉 [ʃi:ˈʃiɲˤ] she-ee-SHEEN.

n'Extra Notes Some Notes:

1. No, not that other one.
2. In short form, I'll probably be referring to this text as either n'Itaesséll Ixre Ludiehi / d'Ixre Ludiehi or The New (Sellan) History (of Gavel). The word Itaesséll, best translated as "Sellan Gavel," is a distinctly archaic name for (the portion of) the continent (dominated by the Séll), in the same way that Britain is sometimes called Albion, or Japan is called Yamato. You'd be surprised at just how recent the name "Gavel" is.
3. While fully-accurate historical transliteration might be fun for some, and while I do think that it's rather neat, no sane reader deserves to be subject to AI: TO· ACO· HINEIN· EFRE· ED: INLYA· NOETA·· A: T· S: VAMFE: NEYLOS· C: FIU˦FREN: NOTIO: EQUO·· for who-knows-how-long.

 

Heads-up: the intro-to-Kander chapter's halfway done, but most of my time and effort this week is going into translating chapter 2-IV into d'Inlya for the wynnfair art contest. If you like what I'm doing here, and if you can, make sure to vote for my submission in #your-work on Saturday!

 

Extra Notes: Aregindenna Siosaries, in the original High Gavellian
The images in this thread will probably break, eventually. I'll be on these forums until the sun goes out, though, so if you're reading this in the future & they're broken, feel free to DM me.





Romanized
​

"Qo qira do pe séll om aensaure narsu. Cin Qira cin. Pe flarniesi wredear si'l al do cin navoyl. Nes hi neti'l. Iten-pa, d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes, pe vílan-alló. Oŕa do pe siausre mosu, cin ne per si fachachr. Laquenna cin d'asna an pe flarniesi fachachr."

"Inca ti'l-a Hinnein si craôae-pa, d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes. Qira'l-a si cê rio ne pe jes esse si nelyos sofur. Aco Hinnein cin pe flarniesi si craôae-alló. Fi cin flasuen si neylos sial."

Ta tauch a "Cin do pe mosu ludiehi per-alló régeinden" rell.

"S'ix ti'l-a e-pe ne Fios távas om notio a ixre énteite tiesaur, le av Levtus eison thios-pe do pe mosu ludiehi-alló. Inca ti'le-a av do pe mosu ludiehi laqu kom qa do pe mosu egil a sial vra nalle nalle cho-il. Haci a nein pau tral. Qa a vra nalle pau tral. Inca lihla ne Fios mosu ludiehi."

Inca ti'l-a tauch e ne hivra er fonn d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes soc. Orgin-te av Och Rudomaessa ne flrausvraere. d'Er ti régeinden egilae. Qira e ne Fios Flarniesi laqu kom s'ix távas, do ti ëiqruven la haci séll neylos ané.

"Ti'l-a per do sento cin régeinden agrae, ta ne si son sil do notiohi ixre téch? Iteiyl-ti! An ctén afae-alló lyae-alló iteiyl-ti. An do ti venaci do sento an aquto ozi iteilye soson nilaesae-alló. Le qira per si lon navoyl tau egil-ti ne per tiéba."

Inca Auvréfutire ne tiúonve fonn tiesaur. Tauch ne laurí vaer-alló, ta ne flrausvraere ozi tion. Inca Auvréfutire ti régeinden xaete pete. Tauch veci s'ei vamfe ixre tiesaur ti dejan xaete pete. Sifi ti joll tion ulnos ixre tiesaur, sifi ne Fiosqa jes, sifi haci tauch llo raum séllhi-alló paute, sifi tiovu tauch nalle ctét-alló aurdaex onre, sifi av do ti mosu do pau baurdae ixre tiesaur, sifi av do ti siausre mosu do soc eison suhsoiésen. Ta tauch av do ti ludiehi do vra nalle tau s'ei vamfe náva cho-il.

Isha tiure wrede e vrar ti flarniesi soc la ór tauch do ti mosu ludiehi-alló tiéba. E-ti relle tau s'ei vamfe távas av Kaencollva nilaes flarniesi sac hrauhariéx. Laquenna ti'l-a qira tauch ne laque er fonn egilae, do ti mosu ludiehi la ne s'ix neylos inlya teitae. Tauch n'uwési fonn lan. n'Uwési'l ne flrausvraere. Il q'er aegaeo-ti. Tauch d'er, ta lon trach do ti llue ctét.

Qira Bax Jes rell "Hi sieihírysieim. Laquenna a-ti'l cin ne Fios xaútrenaquo, si'l n'Elléx Tiesaur Jes. Oŕa per ne cin xaútrenaquo'l inca: Do pe mosu ludiehi d'asna zinae."

Inca ti'l-a do ti lyarni ne kuomuen teite. Ne Fios flarniesi haci sellae lon bax ctén flrausvraere-alló ixre tral. Ne Bax Jes Auvréfutire-alló do vekom jes il ne Sogauton Flarulle ta ne Sogauséll d'Auch Auhariex. Ti wrede chipissau do sollu sial. Flarlye tauch n'iosieure na, Auvréfutire e thios ti vra nalle soc. Tauch lon dejan jes an pogauone ixre tral. Tau s'ei vamfe narsu-ti.

Translation (Gloss)

Spoiler: One

Spoiler: Two

Spoiler: Three

Spoiler: Four

Spoiler: Five

Spoiler: Six

Spoiler: Seven

Spoiler: Eight

Spoiler: Nine

Spoiler: Ten

—
​

Words that are still at least somewhat recognizable from when FinnDestren gave them to me:

• Basic grammar particles: an and ne are (orthographically) unchanged. On the way from Jésen to d'Inlya, du became do, while or became ór, though the latter is word-not-appearing-in-this-translation. However, derived particle oŕa does appear.
• The name Orisefutisre, which corresponds to Auvréfutire in d'Inlya, incorporates the Jésen word ori, "moon."
• Jésen copula nai~naj was reduced to d'Inlya na. The latter appears one (1) time in this translation, near the end, as a deranked nonfinite. The finite copular predication situation in d'Inlya is beyond repair.
• The initial vowel in Jésen der, "stone," got confused for the definite article in 5th Age Gylian, hence its appearance as er in the above translation.
• Don't ask me how Jésen vamore "strong" contributed to the d'Inlya intensifier vamfe, though what few notes from 2023 I can piece together suggest that it was the major ancestor.
• The colour black, trach, appears once, in all its archaic glory. Red, vaer, underwent the more expected [a] > [æ~ε] shift from Jésen var.
• The number three, fonn, remains orthographically unchanged between Jésen and d'Inlya, though this is a fossilized, irregular spelling in the latter.
• Finally, the indefinite article om is descended from kom, "one," hence why it's still spelled as 〈K〉 in scribal shorthand, as well as when using letters as numerals.

 

- Trachcten Derexir -
BLACKFIRE STONEHEART
​

I. Ne Du Derium​

In the fourth age, in the time before the Sellans came northward out of Gylia, there dwelt in the land now-called Kander a people who were, it is said, not born of the union between two parents, but shaped by magics. In its tongue, the Séll named them Deries, "Stone-Folk," for they were drawn from the earth itself, hewn by shamans and sages in the dark of the hills, sculptors freeing form from rock. Then their Lord and God came among them, and It breathed into the stone a fiery spark, and the Stone-Folk rose and lived as Its servants.

But that is the mythological account. Historians have sharply differing views regarding the true nature of the Stone-Folk. Certainly, they were not Sellans. The Sellans of the ancient era so far discussed have a concrete origin in the Gylia region, and their earliest records, with which we have concerned ourselves, describe the Stone-Folk as a people entirely alien to the Séll.

One major issue is that the Stone-Folk left behind no writing, at least none that can be deciphered. They are known through art, and through pottery and sculpture that exceeded any Sellan work of the time. But writing, as introduced to the Sellans via the Elves, seems to have either eluded or been eschewed by their culture.

Our picture is thus almost entirely filtered through the perspective of Sellans, writing in Jésen, as they expanded northwest from Gylia in the early fifth age, as well as in the stories and myths that too often serve as our only window into the mythic past of Gavel.

As previously noted, the name “Stone-Folk” was not a metaphor; it was widely believed that their bodies were literally shaped from the earth. This was unlike the Elves, Dwarves, and Vindals, who were recognizably the same species as the Sellans (if warped by magics, in the case of the Elves).

Any historian with more than three or so brain cells¹ will immediately draw parallels to the Doguns. They, unlike the Stone-Folk, survived into much clearer historical attestation. That the mysterious Stone-Folk were simply a far-flung western population of Doguns – prevalent during the Dawn-Ages, but doomed to fade just as their eastern cousins – is so clean a theory that many of our profession stop there and pay the topic no further mind.

Unfortunately, the theory runs into some issues under closer scrutiny. For one, Kander and the Molten Heights are wildly different environments. To accept this theory is to accept that a large group of Doguns were willing to settle in the cold, damp west for an unknown period of time, during which they left little sign of the traditional Dogun habit of constructing stone mega-structures, and seem to have limited themselves to a few small statues.

Second, the Doguns, rather famously, were among the first peoples in Gavel with an attested writing system. No trace of that system, nor anything close to resembling it, has ever been found in Kander.

Third, the Stone-Folk were not the first people whom Sellan writers described in such lurid terms. The Vindals and Dwarves, two peoples physically indistinguishable from Sellans, were also described as hewn from stone, and the latter were said to be tremendously short and squat², molded so by their underground haunts, which they carved in the same way as the Doguns. Naturally, none of this is true.

Fourth, Sellans and Stone-Folk would have children with one another constantly during the fifth age, as the former came north from Gylia. Local contemporary sources make no mention of a literal stone appearance, or of their being a different species. Simultaneously, more distant sources in Sogosell and the Canyon Marches continued to describe them as literally fashioned from stone.

Finally, the Sellanization of the Stone-Folk was such a gradual process that “Deries” remains a poetic name for the people of Kander to this day, a people who regard the Stone-Folk as a core element of their ancestry. All this in mind, it seems that the Stone-Folk were an ordinary Selloform cultural group, one that had the same exaggerated tales told about it as all distant peoples. It seems that the only difference between them and, say, the Vindals, is that the latter survived long enough to become fully mundane to the Séll.

One might try to make a sixth point: The God of the Doguns, Garaheth, was physically present to rule over his servants in the east as a despot, and was never recorded blazing a route halfway across the continent to animate a population of Doguns in the middle of nowhere in Western Gavel.

But every surviving record makes clear that the fell God of the Stone-Folk was not Garaheth.

II. ONOC​

While its true name, as transmitted by the Elves, was "Onokthu," it was and remains more popular to call this god by the title Nightbringer³. Where it is still revered in the north, it eventually became syncretized to the Sellan hearth-fire spirit Égion-Ctein. But this was never a complete merger, and Kanderites can still be found insisting their separate nature to this day.

To the Elves, and to many traditionalists of Séll, the term "god" might be a bit inaccurate, if not profane. Traditional teachings of both Séll-friends and Elf-friends held that the Nightbringer was a terrible demon, a harbinger of darkness and evil, who ruled much of the land with a black hand of terror during the third age. They teach that the Nightbringer was only barely defeated, but even then survived in Its Heart-poison, which destroyed the Elves and brought the world one age closer to nightfall.

The Stone-Folk, and their descendants through which they speak, would counter that the Nightbringer was a god of life, and fire, servant of the worldly master, who had been placed there to create Its children and protect the last world⁴ from the terrors that would seek to worm inside and break it apart.

The Séll-friends, and the Elf-friends, would both reply that the Stone-Folks's god was named "The Nightbringer⁵," and that it was the Stone-Folk who gave It that name. The fact that their northern neighbors worshiped the literal Demon of Black Fire, a great villain for a great swathe of Sellan mythology, was, if not an impetus for Sellan expansion into the north, certainly a powerful justification.

III. An Der Aros​

It would only be natural that the Sellans of Gylia would seek to escape from the chaos of the Anarchy. The main barrier to this escape was hydrological.

Central Gavel is dominated by the Lake Gylia watershed. The lake (though it is more of an inland sea) occupies a large endorheic basin, its feeder rivers entirely disconnected from the great basin of the Gel and Sage that so dominated the western half of the continent.

Hence, while Sellan expansion along the river systems inside Gylia was simple enough, connection to the north and west, to the lands of the Stone-Folk, involved difficult and expensive portages, nearly impossible to sustain in the chaos of the Gylian Anarchy.

For those who nonetheless wished to cross the hydrological divide, there were two options, both rivers that neared the Gel (the great river of the Stone-Lands). The first was the Trach River (“Trach” meant “Black” in the tongue of the Stone-Folk, and soon in Jésen as well), which for two main reasons proved a poor choice for expansion and settlement.

The first reason was that, as the name implied, it was a blackwater river, fed by a great marsh in the southeastern Stone-Lands. This left it short of sediments and of the nutrients that typically fed fisheries, and made it an especially poor navigable waterway. The second was that the marsh made the river’s course unstable: in wet years it spread across the lowlands into a dozen shifting channels, and in dry years it shrank to shallows no vessel of trade could pass.

While the zone of water-mixing where it spilled into Lake Gylia was highly productive and heavily settled, the population density dropped off a cliff as one went upriver. The Black River became a boggy mess long before it drew near any serious tributaries of the Gel. Nobody wanted to manage portage in a swamp.

Little wonder, then, that the northern of the two rivers was vastly preferred for transportation of people and goods between Gylia and the lands of the Stone-Folk. Though the river was shorter than the Black River, its origin in nearby mountains made it swifter, and it carried down great quantities of sediment and nutrients, making the land on its banks incredibly attractive to farmers.

It flowed through much firmer land and, before reaching its head of navigation, came within a day’s portage of a large lake that fed the Gel. It is no wonder that this northern river was called Ac An Der Cosol, or “The River-to-Stone,” among the Sellans. This name would quickly simplify into the “Ander River,” and the territory around its banks duly came to be known as the Ander.

While the south and east raced towards unification, the lands around the Ander would know the chaos and fragmentation of the Gylian Anarchy for decades longer. No one clan, village, or family came to rule the entire stretch of the Ander, but petty analogues of great houses would eventually distinguish themselves as the five paramounts of the north.

In order of might and influence, they were the House of Ros, which controlled the outlet of the Ander into Lake Gylia, followed by the House of Enos, which similarly controlled the best portage to the Gel and the lands of the Stone-Folk. Along the river, between those two, sat the Houses of Borda, Xir, and Tiequax.

Though the great and petty houses of the Ander warred and feuded constantly, they were one and all weaker than the greatest house of the Stone-Folk, the House of Garatrach, which was, in the eyes of the Sellans, more a miniature Séll of its own than a traditional noble house. The Garatrach controlled the Gel-side of the portage between the two watersheds, and constantly feuded with the House of Enos as a result, as well as with the fiefs downstream along the Ander as it attempted to spread its influence towards the east.

Tolerating the Nightbringer’s brood was anathema to the children of Séll who made their home upon the Ander, and a bleak camaraderie would eventually emerge. Like clockwork, though clocks did not yet exist, armies of the Stone-Folk would smash into the fief of Enos and attempt to push towards Gylia, and like clockwork would the five paramounts of the north bind themselves together in a lordly alliance to push them back.

There is no record of how many times the land suffered such an invasion during the Gylian Anarchy, but as the period neared its end it was so predictable as to be natural to the Sellans of the Ander, and so inevitable that the question began to be raised: Why had nothing yet been done about the Garatrach?

The answer, in short, was a lack of unity. The moment each invasion was beaten back, the League of the Ander – called at this time Siunlre, and later Siýnolr – would disband and return to fratricidal squabbling. Without the threat from the west, they simply saw no reason to strike farther than the fief of Enos.

In the end, there would not come one reason but three, back to back to back.

First, the winters of the north. For several years, in rapid succession, the harvests along the Ander failed. The river froze early and thawed late. There were not enough seeds for the next year, let alone to feed the peasantry, and no amount of fish from Lake Gylia could make up for the shortfall.

As their granaries emptied, the lords of the Ander found their people drifting north and west, towards the lands of the Stone-Folk. The holdings of the Garatrach, heathen yet bountiful, began to look less like an unacceptable emergence from Séll and more like Séll itself.

The second cause was the Garatrach themselves. After generations of raiding, and at the moment of the Ander lords’s greatest weakness, they did not invade. Records and testimony from traders and travelers reported consolidation. The Garatrach were quarrying stone and felling timber. Their march-lands near the Séll were becoming populated not by warriors but by families. The Garatrach were not raiding the Ander; they were building a road into it. A raid must end, but the same is not true of an invasion.

The third cause was a voice. In the second winter of the famine, a priest living on the lands of Xir began to make herself heard in the market-villages along the river. Her name was Kabax, and she preached that the harsh winters were no accident; they were the breath of the Nightbringer, she said, whose brood grew fat in the west while the children of the Séll starved. The walls rising on the portage belonged to It, a grasping hand raised to the neck of the Ander.

Kabax was a shaman, and cleric. She held no land and commanded no Sellans. In the darker days of the Anarchy, she would have had little bearing on greater events, and the lords of the Ander surely wished it to stay that way. But n’Auré was ever beloved by the people, and the people were cold and hungry. They would listen to anyone who could tell them why and point them at the enemy, and the lords, too, would listen.

The House of Xir came first, naturally, then Borda and Tiequax, then Enos, which had the most to lose from the new posturing of the Garatrach, and last Ros, which would join only when it became clear that now was the hour of Siunlre, and that its neighbors would march without it.

Whatever the truth of Kabax’s claims, the effect was plain. For the first time in recorded history, the League of the Ander did not gather to repel an invasion, nor would it disband at the end of the season. The great levies of the basin were gathered, and from the Séll beyond came as many great figures from across the shores of Gylia as had heard tell of potential glory. Soon, they would march west.

IV. Raamb Indošeq Ngarètrach​

The campaign that followed is better recorded than most events of the early fifth age, if only because it was the first in which anyone thought to count the days.

In the spring of the famine's third year, the League marched into the lands of the Stone-Folk, passing in force beyond the fief of Enios for the first time in history. Though the Garatrach knew of their muster (it was quite large, and loud), the League crossed into the Gel basin in eleven days, faster than any of the Stone-Folk thought possible.

The Garatrach had yet to complete their muster. Their gathered army was smaller than that of the League, though it perhaps wouldn't have mattered, for the latter contained heroic figures of the age. Knowing this, the Garatrach host retreated towards the fortress called Leksè Ndaale⁶, which had been overlooking a holy site, though it was not yet entirely finished.

Nearby was a quarry, one which the Sellan army captured. Its stone was used to build ramps and take the unfinished walls of the fortress within a week of siege. Here, the League committed its greatest sin against the Stone-Folk: they slaughtered not just the warriors, but their families and children as well, and they did it upon the holy ground before the fortress.

This cruelty was unneeded, and intentional, and it hardened the hearts of the Stone-Folk. They rallied ever-harder to the banners of the Garatrach, driven by a zeal nearly as great as their Sellan foes.

Behind the Sellan host, what would have been an invasion had been turned on its head, as boats built on the Lake Gylia were hauled across the portage to the great lake that fed the Gel, and villages were emptied of Sellan shipbuilders for the sake of building a new fleet of conquest down through the Stone-Lands.

The lands of the Stone-Folk were put to the sword, their granaries seized to feed the armies of the League and Sellans of the Ander. Facing the ruin of their people, the Stone-Folk turned to dark and profane magics, as was their wont, and unleashed all manners of curse upon the Séll.

Perhaps their greatest (and certainly their longest lasting) was the Curse of the Wolf, from a nature god of the Stone-Folk, who had himself consecrated Leksè Ndaale and so had taken great umbrage at the befouling it saw under the League. Those of the invading army who had slain innocents on the sacred ground would find themselves taken by madness, and lycanthropy. As they were rabid dogs, one and all, they would pass along their disease like rabid dogs, and the potential to fall to it regardless would always live within the blood of their descendants.

By midsummer, the seat of the Garatrach would fall. The final confrontation was a thing of legend. It is said that the Stone-Folk sought to summon the Nightbringer, and nearly succeeded, but that the priest Kabax closed the gate before more than a single giant blackened hand could escape. The Lord of the West, ruler of the House of Garatrach and among the mightiest warriors in the world, was slain in single combat by the hero Cteneux atop the roof of the fortress, in a clash so great that it was visible for countless leagues, and destroyed much of the building.

Garatrach, perhaps because of its neighboring the Séll, was the mightiest and most war-like of the Stone-Folks's houses. With its fall came the fall of the entire Gel, and its enclosure by the east.

The victorious League was immediately consumed by its old habit of internal squabbling.

Enos took great glee in is victory, claiming the portage all the way to the Gel as part of its fief, and the army of Ros, great in size and wealth, also took the tiontaith's share of the grain. Borda, Xir, and Tiequax, always crushed between those two, but never fully lesser, risked finally falling behind them, and so grew bitter. Within a week, the victorious lords of the Ander were camped apart, and the League was poised to dissolve.

Enter Kabax, or perhaps re-enter, for she had been there for the entire campaign. Though she was no great warrior, nor even a shaman of incredible power, she had made great inroads with several. The Dwarf-Lord Cteneux, now proven the greatest living warrior, was ever her shadow, and the priests of n'Auré who had joined the campaign had deferred to her.

It was her name behind the defeat of the Stone-Folk's attempted demonic summoning, and behind the grain doles given out by the priests and clerics to the people of the Ander. The common Sellan regarded her, and not the five lords, as the one who had led this war, and who had freed them from famine. Was it not only natural, that she should lead in peace?

The high lords knew this, and much disliked it. She was too well-loved by the people, and the five did did not wish for her power to yet-further wax. Naturally, each favored themself as candidate to rule the Stone-Lands, but each knew that they could not dare move to take it without insulting the other four. Perhaps Lord Cteneux could have taken the emptied seat of the Garatrach, and there were serious rumblings that he might, but he was soon recalled to the east, for his father had died and the kingship of Vara now fell to him.

It was Lord Ros Harnie who proposed to give the seat to the woman who could not found a house of her own. A priest, after all, had no heirs, and the seat would reopen after her death, giving all of them time to position themselves properly for a takeover.

The fortress of the Garatrach was a ruin, and so, in a final show of spite against the Stone-Folk, the crowning took place in the slightly-more-intact Leksè Ndaale, upon the very field in which the Séll had first sinned against the Stone. There she was crowned “Prince of the Ander and Gel.” She would never be as powerful as the other princes, for the five great lords who sat there to see her crowned would continue on as her council, but with these lands under her remit she would be a mighty Prince indeed.

To the dismay of those selfsame lords, Prince Kabax would within two years marry a scion of the defeated Garatrach, securing her bloodline and settling the matter of her heirs. The lords, who had agreed to crown her precisely because a priest could found no house, were caught entirely off guard. By the time they understood what she had done, the marriage was sealed and the common people had celebrated it. To move against her would have shattered the League and handed the land back to the Stone-Folk, and so there was little they could do. She would go on to have four children, of the House of the Ander and Gel. To the chagrin of many of the Stone-Folk, though they had little power to change this, the Sellans would often shorten this name to the "House of the Ander."

Upon her death, Prince Kabax took with her her beloved mace, called Righteousness, refusing her heir's desire to inherit it, such that it could become a family heirloom. Instead, she commissioned a dear friend, an accomplished smith, to forge a new mace. It would also be called Righteousness, and would act as a symbol of her heir's rule.

Thus it would be that every Prince of the Ander and the Gel would come to bear a mace called Righteousness, and that the name would itself become the heirloom.

Author's Notes

1. One would think that this would go without saying.
2. This is most certainly thanks to their name. However, "Dwarf" describes their size compared not to Sellans, but to the Goliaths of the Canyon, who traditionally held them captive as servants during the Dawn-Ages. In fact, skeletal records reveal that the average Dwarf of the fifth age to have been taller than their Sellan counterpart.
3. Uzil Afaexaed, in d'Inlya. The final -d is silent.
4. Even a modern Kanderite would use the archaic term uvau for "world" in this case, rather then the more modern kalye.
5. In materials dated to the fifth age and earlier specifically, the word nowadays used to mean "night" instead meant something closer to "deprivation~eternal darkness~apocalypse." Despite this semantic shift, the word continues to be translated, both traditionally and in this text, as "night," though contemporary speakers used a different word entirely to describe the dark period when one went to sleep.
6. This is nonsense, and the source used likely inserted the site to provide readers with a recognizable name. The settlement nowadays called Old Lexdale wouldn't even be home to a fortress for another 200 years. Most contemporary records instead agree that the region was ruled from Castle Garatrach until the late fifth age.
7. Nac Ander Gelallo Ohariex, in Jésen.

Translator's Notes
Part IV's title is in a scuffed reconstruction of the substrate Language of the Stone-Folk, which was entirely lost save for a few words fossilized in the speech of Kander. The actual words that have been substratified are High Kanderite Raamondi, d'Inlya Indóllex, and the very word Garatrach, the latter as preserved through this story.

Though the Elves knew the Nightbringer as Onokthu, this was not Its true name according to the Stone-Folk and the Kanderites who succeeded them. I haven't been able to find any sources that actually state Its other name, though.

 

I'm very curious about what the stone-folk were actually like

I absolutely love this turn of phrase
10/10 would and will steal

It's all coming together

Using terminology like this is such a little thing, but it makes it so much more tied to the world and says lots without spelling it out

The fact that his first name is his house name reveals an interesting quirk of d'Inlya. Hmm

Overall I loved it, this bit specifically even more than I have lived the rest
It felt like reading a fantasy novel smashed with a semi-opionated news article, and the sheer amount of effort to design noble houses and land disputes and come up with a simultaneously fantastical and practical history is so good. It honestly reminds me of the Guide so much, it's just so good

Side note: I wonder if Faltach is a really garbled evolution of Kabax.

 

We'll get a bit of an indirect picture through their effects on the Kanderite Sellans, but I'm really sorry to report to you (and to every in-universe historian) that this trend of Sellan cultural imperialism/erasure is going to continue until they get their act together and start respecting their neighbors. We should expect to see this by (checks notes) uh. uh-oh.

Out of universe, this quirk dates to Finn's original Ancient Gavellian regularly sticking modifiers before the heads that they modify, e.g. Ne du Valeos du Ellach = "of the realms the war" & An Gavel Ellen = "to Gavel glory." House names developed from descriptors. So, say, for our new Princes, "[Name] of the Ander" would be Nac Ander [Name]. Adjectives can sit either before or after their main noun, since Jésen doesn't have super strict word order, but this general preference for Modifier-before-Modified will pretty firmly put in place the convention that Sellan family names come first.

"semi" is a bit much <3
dont trust any of these people

how do you like ppls posts multiple times. how do you communicate how happy comments like this make you feel. is it to be a mystery forever

 

- Ux, Lannonuvni K -
BELOVED COMPANION, PART ONE


I. Ctene​

On the northeastern shores of Lake Gylia, there sat a land called the Dwarrowséll. It was home to many petty lords, nearly all of whom owed fealty to the Kingdom of Varaoresse, whose name was oftentimes shortened to "Vara."

In the 37th year before 5A 1, an heir was born to the King of Vara. By his mother, Uros Denios of the House of Gaufasa, he was named Cteneux¹, for as an infant he burned to the touch, and had nearly slain her in his coming.

Uros had ruled justly and ably for many years, but the bearing of her son bled the life from her body. Afterwards, she grew weary of the burden of living. Though Cteneux was her only child, she could never bear another, for their spirit and strength that would nourish one had been consumed by her heir. She would soon pass into the night.

The kingship of Vara could not be taken up by an infant, and so her husband, Su-Afcicen, who had been born into the House of Ciritios, would succeed her as king. The death of his wife, from which he would never truly recover, would make Su-Afcicen into a joyless man. Though she had told him that their child was blameless before passing, and though he was otherwise warm and just, he could never bring himself to love his son.

He was denied even touch, for the infant Cteneux burned his father and gave him a blackened hand. Not for many years would it become safe to hold him. Cteneux was, to the eyes of Su-Afcicen, more a demon out of the east than a Sellan begotten from he and his beloved.

His distaste curdled and grew foul. Cteneux was raised by his seneschal, Atarasell. She was of the Dwarrowséll, but far more of the Sellans than of the Dwarves, and taught Cteneux in the Sellan manner. The heir to Vara was dark-haired, as were many people of the north, and grew swiftly. He soon revealed himself to be gifted in all things. He was skilled in hunting and battle (if in the curated ways of the royal demesne), and fair of face and countenance.

Though many of the Dwarrowsellans grew great beards, like their eastern kin, Cteneux would shave the slightest hair the moment it appeared. He kept his hair cropped short, barely reaching past his ears. He kept himself austere, clean, and impeccable, and always kept an eye on the courtly trends in fashion.

Cteneux's eyes were unlike those of his mother or his father, for they were alight with flaming gold. It was said that he was gods-touched, and that his piercing gaze laid bare the hearts of all. It was certainly known that he could read the subtleties of a face better than most of the court, and that he had mastered this before he came of age.

His mind was a whirlpool and devoured the library of his father's palace. With endless questions, he drove his tutors to distraction, and learned more of the world than most of his age. He was exemplary, at least in theory, in lordly duties, and could carry out the acts of court with aplomb. By his teenage years, Cteneux was commanding retainers of his father, collecting taxes, and mediating small disputes in the royal demesne, in the name of the King.

But while he could show great wisdom, he was also stubborn, and often brittle. The palace chronicles record that, in his youth, he found himself embroiled in a great feud with the son of a visiting vassal. Plenty bore witness to the incident, and all agreed that it had been the rashness of both that provoked it. They were both instructed by their parents to be contrite, and to apologize to one another.

The visiting vassal's son did so, but Cteneux publicly refused his father's demand, and could not be swayed for the entire day. This incident brought great shame to the House of Gaufasa. While Cteneux's personal reputation would recover — he was a charismatic youth — his father would not forget it, nor any of his smaller missteps, not so long as Su-Afcicen lived.

And what a tragedy that it was that this Touruto's stubbornness came to Cteneux as an imitation of his father! But Cteneux had rarely seen his father's warmth and humility, and so failed to temper himself. He was nearly unmovable, rarely swayed by counsel, and never by force. He became rash, and was ever-consumed by a burning need to prove his greatness and worth. He knew well, and had been well told, that his birth was a waste, for he had taken from Vara its king.

For the rest of his father's life, despite Cteneux's being the only heir to the House of Gaufasa, his father's coldness created a cold court, and that coldness rendered him a prodigal son. He would soon travel Gylia, and beyond, alongside his companions. He would be the first of the Heroes of Gavel, and his name would become a byword, for all the children of the Séll in his time and after would desire to become Cteneuxon.

1. The "C" is silent. During the early fifth age, "Cteneux" was pronounced [te:ˈneu:ks] tey-ey-NEY-oo-ooks. By the sixth age, "Cténeux" would be pronounced [teˈnuks] tey-NUKES.

II. Dane​

The most prized art of the Dwarves was that of the smithy. Its artists were called the Original Hirsa. Indeed, this profession is the source of the word "origin" in all the tongues of the civilized world. Though all acts of creation echoed the breath that had shaped the world, it was reatined most faithfully in the workings of the forge.

It was the only place in the world that Cteneux did not feel cold. Accordingly, he spent much time there, and proved as gifted in its arts as anything else he put his mind and time to.

By his twentieth year, Cteneux was recognized as among the greatest smiths of the Dwarrowséll. Under the tutelage of Alsim, the master-smith of Vara's court, he would forge countless ploughs and tools, and repair ancient armor, but his first masterwork would be a shield. It was broad and made to be used alongside a spear, though he had yet to craft a spear that could fit it. He would name the shield Ohauxa.

Upon witnessing its make, Master Alsim told the youth that he had nothing more to teach him. The only finer smiths in the world lay in the eastern Dwarven citadels, hidden under mountains, and the Mountain-Dwarves did not suffer guests. Not even those of the Dwarrowséll, whom they regarded as having lost their path. Many of the Dwarrowsellans had travelled east in attempts to once again closen to their Canyon kin, but all had been rejected. Soon enough, even they came to accept this, and no longer journeyed to bother the Dwarves.

Cteneux did not particularly care for this. With the coming of spring – for he would not travel the mountains of the East in winter – he made for Thianus-Rian-Byy, the nearest citadel of the Dwarves.

Though the markets standing above the fortress were free to all, he was not considered to be a true Dwarf by the Lord of Thianus. The stone doors to the heart-forges were denied to him. He pleaded with the Lord, who did not even grace Cteneux with his own name, and was very nearly thrown out of the citadel for his rudeness and presumption.

But perhaps the Lord of Thianus saw something in his eyes, for he then told Cteneux that there was perhaps a way to be accepted beyond the Stone Doors. Thianus-Rian-Byy was a trading citadel between the east and Gylia, and had accumulated great treasures within its vaults. Such wealth had the unfortunate habit of attracting dragons, and one had decided to nest upon a nearby mountain and harass travelers, and was clearly making play for the vaults themselves.

The Lord of Thianus did not wish for Cteneux to slay the dragon. For one, he doubted that the young man could, and for another, this would greatly anger the Wise One, an emissary of Urssúr, who acted as protector of the dragons in the east, and whose favour the Dwarves could not afford to lose.

But there could be a solution. Far to the north, there lived a great beast, who was called by the Dwarves Zëbyys, King of the Touruto. It was far larger than the dragon, who was all-together rather young for their kind. Should Cteneux secure the creature's favour, Zëbyys could scare off the dragon, and bring some safety to the merchants about Thianus.

This was a task possibly more difficult than slaying the dragon outright, especially for one such as Cteneux. Yet he accepted it, for he had little choice, and set about travelling deeper into the Canyon.

For this, he would need a guide. Cteneux did not know the ways of this land, which was said to be ever-shifting. Hence, he purchased the services of a monk, named Nzuün. The man was a Vindal, as far as one could tell. He hailed from the distant lands of Ahmnahe, in the far east of the world, but made his home in a nearby temple of the Canyon.

The name "Vindal" came from one of their gods, Vindalur, the Thunder Wyrm, who was also called Urssúr in the west. The Wyrm was not their dearest god, however. It was instead Colossus, who was one of the two chiefs of the Goliaths, and of such size that its name would become a byword for such things.

Like his people's god, Nzuün was a mountain of a man, easily standing a head above Cteneux, who was himself taller than most. His dress was in the ways of the air monks, for he was a follower of Ra-Shaii, the Vindal name for the wind-patron Seh. He was comely; his robes did little to hide his rippling musculature, and his face was nearly as fair as that of Cteneux himself.

Together, the two would quest for the King of the Touruto, a journey of many months thorugh the wilderness. Cteneux, though he was of a strong constitution, and willing to bend the earth to his will, learned much about life in the wilds during these months. In his life before, he had lived in the luxury of a palace, among countless servants, yet had for the sake of speed been reduced to a party of six — himself, Nzuün, two of his guard, and but two servants.

Beyond learning the ways of the wild, much of Cteneux's time on this journey was taken up in conversation with the monk. The two were well educated in matters of philosophy, but had come from traditions entirely opposed, and would endlessly argue on the nature of the Good.

Cteneux, ever a child of the Séll, argued matters of Herk and Stone. He spoke at length of the decay that the world had suffered since its rules had first been laid down. There was a truth to the world, he said, a frozen one, though it had long since been lost to the ravages of time. Only in protecting that which remained could one even begin to return to it.

"So you would argue that return is possible?" asked the monk.

"No," said Lord Cteneux, "for tomorrow comes, and Inlya¹ is always to bleed from the world with it. There is no return, only the beginning of the return, and even it will eventually be destroyed."

"What, then, is its purpose? It seems that this has none."

"But that is nihilism," said Cteneux. "To argue that something should not be striven for because it is impossible to attain it is to deny the glory of striving in the first place. If it were possible for the world to be ever-good and desirable, then the peoples and gods of the world would have long ago achieved such a thing. There would be no more cruelties and injustice."

"An interesting thought!" said the monk. "But what of the very act of building? People bring new glories into the world, and they do so continuously. You claim that your Séll, in its past, is the source of all good. Yet, at the same time, you claim that the mere act of greed can generate new good. What a paradox!"

In the eyes of the Vindals, the world was a roiling mass of the elements, anchored by Water², the source of change and growth. The nature of ills, then, was in the slowing of history and clogging of the currents. This was a lunar outlook, in the dichotomies of the East. Nzuün knew full well that it was eventually fated to dominate that of the sun, in both the eyes of the Séll and of his people.

"It is possible," he said, "to generate new good, and to bend the arc of the universe towards good. It is not something that should be hoarded, but spread, and allowed to act on its own."

Cteneux disagreed, naturally. "What, then, is your purpose?" he asked. "If you cannot guard good, and distribute it among the people, if one must stand back and let the world act, it seems that you have none."

"But that is nihilism," said Nzuün, with a matching grin upon his face. "The action of one may be weak, but we speak of the action of many. If all held to such a belief, we would speak to the action of none."

"An interesting thought!" said Cteneux, who could scarce hold back a barking laugh. "But the purpose of a philosophy is to guide action in and of itself, so as to change the world. This is great motive for finding one, but it gives no prescriptions. It identifies no Séll, and is yet passive in determining what the good is, and how one should go about protecting it. Dress it up how you like, Nzuün, but it is nothing more than the philosophy of inaction, of letting the world flow about you, and of putting faith in something that you cannot see."

Then, as to prove Cteneux correct, the party was attacked by a wild dragon. Then, as to prove Nzuün correct, the dragon was easily dispatched, and in the dispatching of it (which took nearly a day), they met a local huntress, a Sellan by the name of Elia. She had caught sight of the Touruto King scarcely a week before, and could lead their party to its current dwelling.

Upon their arrival at the vale of Zëbyys, and catching sight of it, Cteneux insulted the great spirit, believing that it could not hear him from leagues away. For his impudence, both his guards and one of his servants were killed, and the survivors would spend the next several hours fighting their way through a broken Canyon, through countless servants of Zëbyys. They were all Touruto, or blessed with their reselience, and nearly impossible to slay.

The trial ceased upon their arrival at Zëbyys's rest, at which point Cteneux was ushered to meet with the King alone. The insult was repaid, and Cteneux minded his tongue in the King's presence, but he had yet a task to ask of it.

Zëbyys agreed to dislodge the dragon, but only after the completion of yet another trial. Farther to the east, in a great spire, lived the Dwarf-Lord Aunueth, last of the servants of Garaheth who dwelt in the Canyon. He was a spear in the hide of all, and had slain many Touruto to armour his hosts. This was unacceptable, and Cteneux was to slay him in turn.

Thus it would be. Cteneux and his companions travelled to the tower, and in an act of guile sneaked past Aunueth's armies while they slept. Their task eventually erupted into noise and meteoric fury, but by the time it did, it was too late. Aunueth's generals were slain. The Sorcerer-Lord barely had time to awaken before he found his door blown apart by Cteneux and his three companions, who would soon slay him in his nightclothes.

Despite this, Aunueth still put up a fight, and their battle would bring down the tower atop them. Only the timely protection of Nzuün, who called the winds to spirit them away, allowed their party to survive the collapse. Aunueth was not so lucky, for his most capable subordinates were dead, and his armies were scattered.

With this act, Cteneux would gain the (begrudging) respect of the Touruto King, who would displace the dragon near Thianus-Rian-Byy. Cteneux was allowed passage into the heart-forge, where, using a freely given tooth of Zëbyys, he would forge the masterwork spear Ynis Vrara Vuebxen, often just called Ynis.

For this peaceful removal of the dragon, the Wise One himself would descend upon Thianus, and bless Cteneux's work with the thunder of Urssúr. For the creation of a masterwork, Dana, God of War and Smithing, would bless Cteneux's shield, and name him favoured champion and beloved.

For works of heroism and smithing that awed even the gods, Cteneux would be named Dwarf-Lord, regardless of his origins in the Séll. A week-long feast was thrown in his honour.

Nzuün would here depart from the company of Cteneux, laden with wealth to be sent to his temple, for he had completed his task. Elia, however, would be invited to join Cteneux's retinue, and would accept this invitation of companionship. She had lived alone in the wilds for her entire life, but had found that she did not wish to return. She also feared that Cteneux would die, should he travel alone through the wilderness again, and in this she was certainly correct.

Cteneux's retinue would return to Vara wreathed in glory and find that it did not matter. His father had remarried, and had another child. This child was of Cteneux's blood, but not of the blood of Gaufasa, despite bearing the name. Cteneux greatly misliked this, which only drove a further wedge between himself and his father.

The court grew yet colder. Within a year, he had once again departed. This time, he travelled to the west, as to see lands beyond the knowledge of the Séll.

1. Entropy, but as viewed through the mirror of the Sellans: the tendency of a system towards order at earlier states. Carries a positive connotation. Séll is itself the mirror image of Inlya, albeit reflected at a smaller scale.
2. Agentic Water, which also generates Air in its passive aspect.

III. Ne Du Ao Rai Du​

Cteneux had come to enjoy his greatly shrunken retinue in the east, and took only Elia and a single servant on the road through Gylia. He did not take a ship, passing by foot around the southern shore of the great lake, meeting and slaying Sellans of every sort.

As he approached the centre of Gylia, and the Aldoron River, he entered the lands of the House of Kaencollva, famed across the Séll for the usurpation of their old masters. Despite their resulting reputation as backstabbing scoundrels, Kaencollvan power had waxed throughout the generations.

They were close in mind and money with n'Auré, which was itself more drawn to the fortified town of Fiosqa, over which the Kaencollvan castle stood. Fiosqa, thanks to its position, was one of the largest and wealthiest settlements in Gylia, and well on its way to becoming the first true city of the fifth age.

It was here that Cteneux's party once again hired a guide. The cleric Indollex had been born to the Stone-Folk, and knew the Stone-Lands well, but had become Sellan, having taken up the cloth of n'Auré. She would guide them west, for a price, albeit a price easily paid by Cteneux.

The party gradually moved northward once more, past the Trach River and into the lands of the Ander. They were accosted many more times, by bandits and worse, but it soon enough became clear that they were an army in miniature, and so those lurking predators of the Anarchy eventually learned to leave well enough alone.

Surely, Cteneux's servant toiled beyond toil during this time. He carried the packs, tended the fire, removed the bodies, and kept his eyes down, for this was the lot of his station. Nearly a year on, and his hands still shook from the deaths of the other three, his nights tormented by all those he had left behind, but none noticed this. The servant was nearly as keen as Cteneux, and did not have his master's blind spot for those close to him.

After entering the fief of the House Ros, on the shores of Gylia, Cteneux elected not to charter a ship to travel upstream the Ander. They had walked here, for he wished to know the land, and they would walk into the lands of the Stone-Folk.

They would come to know many of the peasantry of the Ander in this time, and Cteneux would come to be known among them in turn. He would assist priests, slay beasts, fix bridges, and regale the people with tales from the east. It was here, among the hearts and ears of the common people, that Cteneux-as-Myth took root. It did not hurt that he was wealthy, and invested that wealth wisely wherever he saw the Séll in need. He would become patron to much of n'Auré, and of the many traders of the Ander.

-​

It was during this time that he and his group would hear tell of a great pair of dragons from the west, who were terrorizing the lands around the upper Ander. The Lord of Enos wished for their hides and hoards, and had put forth a great bounty for any who would bring them to him.

But Cteneux remembered his blessing from the Wise One. He thought to himself that the returns for peace could be still-greater than the returns for slaughter, for dragons often had hoards, and were wealthy.

Hence, his party set out to meet them, in peace. Elia read their trail of devastation, finding that these Wyrms, by all appearances, refused to fly, or were unable. They were adept in covering their tracks, but not so much so that she could not find them. By the end of the week, they had found the dragons's lair, as no other had.

Near it they camped in quiet, for well over a day, as they mulled over how they might approach. In this time, without leave, Cteneux's servant set out food before their cave, and kept his distance. Cteneux was angered, but applauded the brashness, and commanded that he continue this attempt. Should the servant be consumed, it would be on his own head.

n'Auré Indollex tried speeches of peace and understanding. Cteneux offered promises of camaraderie, should they but speak. Elia copied the servant's method of leaving food. But it was only for the servant that the wariness of the twin dragons eased, for he was the only one who looked at them and did not see a prize, or a fight.

Eventually, for his sake, the twin wyrms agreed to speak. They emerged from the cave, and it was revealed that they were wingless, and brown-scaled, and that one had been injured by the local people. Their names were Xiel and Voyon, and they hailed from the far west, in the Lands-Beyond-the-Stone.

Their mother, the Mother, God-Queen of the West, had sent them away for their own safety, for she had been challenged, and wished that her youngest whelps could avoid war. And the whelps were young indeed: while Cteneux and his party had been regaled with tales of gargantuan dragons, the twins were each barely larger than a horse. They had been smaller yet, when they left the west.

They wished to return home. Cteneux agreed to escort them, and to protect them, should the worst come. Naturally, they first faked the Wyrms's deaths, such that they could collect the bounty from the Lord Enos, before leaving the lands around the Ander — and the Séll itself — in the dead of night.

They would pass into the lands of the Stone-Folk, so named for the nature of the people there, who were shaped from stone. The Stone-Folk were by their nature immortal, and animated by an inner fire. However, their God, who was called the Nightbringer, was the only one who could imbue them with life, and he had been slain by the Elves at the end of the Third Age.

Though they would not age, the Stone-Folk could still die. As such, the Stone-Folk were dying as a people. Much of the lands within the Gel basin were already thinning and emptying. Many of its residents were in fact Rai-Folk, of whom Cteneux had met a number during his time in the east. It was said that they had originally come from the west, and that many were drawn to the Canyon, and it was here that Cteneux learned this to be true. Many of the Rai-Folk of the Gel were nomads, having come from even farther west, and were making for Sogoséll. That at least explained why he had rarely seen them near Gylia, if they entered the Canyon through the far south.

The party followed the Gel river south through the lands of the Stone-Folk, until its confluence with the Nélla, at which point it turned west. Next, they followed it to its confluence with the Saunthe, at which point the path turned south once more, as the two became the River Sage.

But the home of the twin wyrms was to the north, not the south. The group purchased a small craft from a local band of Orcs before making their way north along the Saunthe. As they traveled upstream, the firmness of the land gave way, and the world grew dark, and it came to be that they entered a great swamp.

The people of the swamp were of even stranger make than the Stone-Folk. They were serpents and lizards, but they walked and spoke, as if Sellans. They called themselves the Iliye, or perhaps the Ishie, or the Elea, or something else, and so among the company of Cteneux it became the custom to call them the Serpent-Folk.

The Serpent-Folk were, in general, hostile to outsiders, and loath to trade with those who barely knew their tongue. It was only the presence of the Twin Wyrms that prevented outright violence. Either it was that they were revered, or that the reliance of such mighty creatures on Cteneux and his companions for protection implied certain death in confrontation. None ever spoke long enough to make the answer clear.

Elia, as expected, was the only reason that the group remained alive long enough to reach the Mother's temple. She foraged, taught them how to clean their water, navigated them through the marsh, and warned them of the monsters in the night.

This was not to say that the rest of the group was useless. The servant knew how to keep camp, to maintain Sellan artifice, and to cook. If not for him, Ynis and Ohauxa would have rusted and fouled, for he kept them and all the party's equipment intact with scavenged oil and cloth. Cteneux, a master smith that he was, and with few other arts to study on his journey, took notice of this care. For the first time, he asked this servant for his name, and learned that it was Nedioros.

The twins were dragons of the earth and water, skilled in burrowing. Though they were still small for their kind, they knew how to create dry burrows, and how to find decent caves. They oft-provided shelter or escape to the group. As they grew larger (and they grew quickly!), they also proved fearsome in battle.

Last, but certainly not least, was Indollex. For she was a cleric, and knew many of the magics of the Séll. She could heal, purify food and drink, and easily start fires in what was otherwise a drenched locale. Without her providing protection from disease, Cteneux and his companions would have been dead a dozen times over.

From the shores of Gylia to the River Saunthe, Cteneux and his party had traveled for two years. Bogged down in the greatest swamp the world could provide, they would travel for two more. As they progressed through the swamp, they learned a good reason for the hostility of the people: the Mother was dead, and a new God-King ruled in the west.

Naturally, the twins swore vengeance. Cteneux, who had grown close to them, agreed to help them in their struggle.

However, by the time they began to draw close to the Mother-Temple, they learned that the new God-King had departed. He had abandoned his new throne, and had left for the east.

It was Voyon who suggested splitting the twins. Vengeance was well and good, but it was better to seize power now, in the absence of the new God-King, than it would be to pursue him, slay him, and return to the Mother-Temple. By that point, another of their kind might have claimed the throne that now lay empty.

"Fair enough," said Cteneux, and so they launched a coup. By its end, Voyon slithered upon the throne of the uttermost west, for the God-King was judged to have abandoned his throne and people. Xiel would accompany Cteneux back to the east, so as to ensure that this abandonment remained permanent.

Carried by Serpent-Folk yet loyal to the Mother's memory, Cteneux, Xiel, and the rest sped eastward. They were left at the westernmost edge of the Stone-Lands, where they could see the trail of devastation left by the God-King of the Serpent-Folk, who was of a kind with the twin wyrms, albeit far larger. Larger than any dragon Cteneux had ever seen, even the Wise One. Larger than King Zëbyys. Cteneux wondered: Was the God-King of a size with Colossus? It seemed that the world itself broke in his wake.

And the God-King's path took him straight towards the Séll. There was no power in Gylia that could withstand such a thing, save perhaps the Witch-Prince of Sogoséll, who Cteneux thought was inclined to ignore the threat so long as it murdered proper Sellans.

-​

They raced across the Stone-Lands, and barely slept in their pursuit. Even on the few nights they were forced to stop, nightmarish visions of destruction sat behind the eyelids of all the Sellans in the party.

It was during one of these nights, when Cteneux found himself unable to sleep, that came to pass the longest conversation with Nedioros that the two had ever had. The two were tired, and drunk on some concoction of the Stone-Folk, and Cteneux spoke more about himself than he had spoken to any other soul. He spoke of the waste of his birth, and of the hatred of his father.

"But do you know that your father hates you?" asked Nedioros. "I mean, have you asked?"

No-one of such low station had ever contradicted him so plainly. Cteneux was within all his rights to strike Nedioros, if not strike him down. But he did not. The two would never again speak of this night, but they would never forget it.

Several days later, the party caught up with the God-King, the Beast of the Iliye, having followed a great burrowed trail nearby the Gel. The God-King was a mottled green, larger than the palace of Cteneux's father, and blotted out the sun. The great wyrm could have eaten a wagon in a single bite. Just one of his teeth was larger than Cteneux, and sat embedded inside a skinless, bone-white skull. He was spined, and had membraned protrusions from his head, resembling the ears of an Elephelk. He was the largest living creature Cteneux had ever seen, and he was to be killed.

In turn, the God-King would nearly kill him. Despite being gods-blessed, twice over. Despite having a party at his back. Despite his use, once again, of a night-ambush, and a masking of their scent. When he finally fell, the God-King would become a landmark. Indollex and Cteneux were both mangled in body, and Nedioros was forced to drag them out from beneath a piece of the God-King's corpse.

The party was forced to spend several weeks recovering in a hamlet of the Stone-Folk, cared for by Nedioros. There, they learned that the God-King had been an ally of the local Lord Garatrach, and had traveled east thanks to the promise of conquest and plunder.

Yet more weeks later, the ragged and filthy party met the gathered host of the League of the Ander. It was difficult for the Sellan army to even recognize them as kin. n'Auré Indollex's pristine white robe had long been discarded, and Cteneux's famously well-groomed visage had grown shaggy, and ragged. The rest looked little better, especially with the dragon Xiel alongside them.

By sheer luck, a vassal lord of the Gaufasa recognized the son of his king, if only by the eyes, as every other part of him had been transformed by the west. He fawned upon Gaufasa Cteneux, and dismissed the rest of his group in the same breath. This greatly angered the Dwarf-Lord, who defended his trusted companions before one-and-all. If he was to enter in the war-tent, they were to accompany him.

Cteneux took command of the Lords of Iron who had come west, and became dismayed to hear of the atrocities they had so far committed. He decreed that any who showed sign of the Curse of the Wolf deserved such a fate, for it was a divine punishment. They were to be banished to these lands of Stone forevermore. This greatly angered many of his vassals, and nearly prompted a coup. However, the would-be conspirators were ordinary Sellans, and Cteneux had slain a God-King. Removing him would be impossible, especially once he demonstrated his prowess upon the field.

Through Indollex, he came to know the priests of the campaign. He grew especially close to Kabax, whom he soon understood to be the heart of the Sellan army, and aided her in all things. He was often her shadow in these times, for few lords were inclined to respect a priest without the weight of the heir to Vara.

The campaign moved swiftly, and by midsummer the Sellan host lay siege to the Castle Garatrach. Cteneux and his companions, alongside Kabax, would directly confront the Lord Garatrach himself, stopping him just as he made to resummon the Nightbringer into the world. Kabax and Cteneux would strike the final blow, as a single, gnarled hand emerged from a portal to the demon's realm.

The collapse of the ritual would destroy the castle, and the hand, much to Cteneux's relief. Until the day of his death, he would insist that the hand looked identical to that of his father.

-​

Come the end of the war, the bulk of the host, which belonged to the lords of the Ander, would bicker over the spoils. In the madness, there was even talk of crowning Cteneux himself as Lord of the Stone-Folk, but the Dwarf-Lord saw through the artifice. He was to be King of Vara, after all. If he was ruling from a throne far to the east, then it did not matter that this land on the far end of the Séll was technically sworn to his name. It would, in truth, belong to the Ander anyway. The Gaufasa name would become an excuse for feuds, and an unacceptable tether on him and his descendants.

But he would not even receive the change to refuse, for it was then that a messenger came from the east, from Vara. Su-Afcicen Denios was dead, and all the Lords of Iron were recalled to resolve the matter of succession.

Cteneux and his companions immediately departed, alongside the rest of the Lords of Iron, who there pledged their loyalty to Gaufasa Cteneux, the new King of Vara. In a week, they had crossed from the Gel basin to the Ander, and had begun sailing downstream towards Lake Gylia.

IV. Akomuenecine Auscivanne​

One evening, on his ship sailing east downstream on the Ander, Cteneux woke to a disquieting silence. Even the gentle rocking of the current and the groaning of the wood were muffled. He called for his companions, but there were none. For the first time in years, he did not have Elia, nor Indollex, nor Xiel, nor Nedioros. He was, to all the world, alone.

Gripping his shield and spear, he came up onto the deck, where an unearthly mist had swallowed his sight. The shoreline was gone, and the mist was so thick that he could barely make out the river-water past the sides of the ship.

He knew, in his heart of hearts, that there was a figure standing near the fore of the ship. And so he went there, cautiously, though with the calmness of a man who had laid low many a beast, and came upon a Sellan dressed in a worn yellow doublet, atop which he wore a ragged black cloak. A tall band of dark iron sat on his brow.

The man was pale, gravely so, and slighter than Cteneux. His hair was longer, though it shared the same dark coloring. He thus looked like many of the people of the Ander, and if not for the fine make of his dress would have seemed rather plain. But then the unfamiliar figure turned to face him fully, and he saw in this man’s eyes a burning fire— the same fire that had given Cteneux his name.

And though Cteneux had seen this flame plenty, reflected in silver and in the waters, he had never seen it from the face of another, and found himself growing disturbed under its piercing gaze. Burning eyes looked into burning eyes, and tears fell from both.

“Are you Death?” asked Cteneux.

The stranger denied this. In a soft rasp, that Cteneux strained to hear, the man named himself a wraith of the Ander. His work was undone, he said, and so he was cursed to haunt this river until the coming of the Seventh Sunset, and the end of all days.

“You have come to give me advice, then,” said Cteneux. His grip remained on his spear, but it had loosened, just slightly. “That, or some manner of prophecy; for I am soon to become King of Vara, and, should Dana will it, Lord of the East.”

The man had no prophecy, for he did not wish to put Cteneux under such a burden, but he did not deny the advice. He warned Cteneux to beware of treachery from the south, and from among his dear companions.

He told Cteneux that the Gaufasa were in grave peril, with the rising of the Princes, and that it would be best to bind them beneath him before Cteneux and his line lost their chance forevermore. He asked Cteneux to seize but a single Bloodstone when Cteneux laid Fios low. He warned Cteneux against the treachery of the Elves—

“Don’t you mean Elf-Friends?” Cteneux asked.

No, said the Wraith. The Elves. They were not defeated, and they would return. Perhaps not in the lifetime of Cteneux, but the Wraith knew not when another King of Vara would sail the Ander. It was up to him, then, to ensure that this last, most grave of warnings was remembered by his line. Cteneux felt just the slightest bit overwhelmed, but his mind was Séll of its own, and would not suffer leaks.

It was also a mind that cared greatly for matters of Navoyl, and was thus ever greedy for more. His eyes told it that the pointed black band worn by the Wraith had a small hole in it, and the smith’s eye did not judge the hole intentional. The metal was bent, and warped as if—

As if it were a socket for a gemstone, cruelly torn.

“Yes, exactly,” said Cteneux. He blinked, once or twice. “What happened?”

It had been taken, said the Wraith. Once, a brilliant red gem had been set in its band, fashioned from the blood of the First Dragon. In times unknown to this age of Decay, its dark metal had sat upon the brows of glorious monarchs.

But like all days of glory, the Night would soon come. The last to wear this crown before the Wraith had come here, to the Ander, to escape the end of all he held dear. He made for the Stone-Lands, which now sat under the Prince of the Ander, for he had been told that there he would be safe.

But he was deceived. The north was the land of his enemies, and they assaulted his ship as it sailed upriver. It was then that the Goddess Entia, a cursèd thing from beyond mortal ken, emerged in the flesh. She slew his guard and companions, and then the king himself, and defiled his corpse. She plucked the Bloodstone from his brow, burned his ship, and made off in the night.

The Wraith had seen the foul deed, for he had been upon the Ander for a long, long time.

Cteneux did not remember returning to his quarters and falling asleep, but when he woke, he saw that his companions had returned, and left his quarters to find that it was dawn, and that all was well. None complained of any mists, silences, or oddness in the night. Clearly, then, it had been a dream, but for the crown of black iron now sitting upon his head.

In the light of day, the wound in the metal was all the more heinous.

-​

Cteneux would spend the whole of that day in contemplation, holding the crown in his hands, near the fore of the ship. It was cool to the touch. Most left him alone, but not Nedioros.

As he had, every day since the swamp, he sat some watered wine at Cteneux's elbow. Though he made to leave in silence, Cteneux instead bade him to—

"Sit."

Nedioros hesitated. Despite all that they had been through, he was a servant, as had been his mother and father before him, and servants did not sit before their lords. This habit, somewhat broken in the west, had returned in force now that they sailed alongside the lords of Vara.

"Then stand, if you must," said Cteneux, minding Nedioros's hesitation, "but listen. When we return to Vara, I shall be king. The seat of my ancestors will be my seat. With it will come their servants, and advisors, and stewards, and seneschals, and every Sellan who learned to flatter him. They know me, and will call my wise before I have spoken a word. They will call me just before I have judged. You have seen them; we were both raised among them."

"My lord has said as much before," said Nedioros.

"But not to you." Cteneux turned the wineskin in his hands.

The wine was already warm. Not scalding, as it might have been in his youth, but he could do little more to cool it. His companions had long since stopped remarking on such a mild curiosity, though Indollex yet avoided his eyes.

Cteneux remembered the words of the Wraith. For a moment, this held his next words, but only for a moment. He had planned this, and he intended to make good on his plans.

"I mean to give you a place at my shoulder," said Cteneux. "A seat near the throne, and at my table, and a name to go along with it, so that none in the court may call you a servant who has forgotten his station. I will name you Varaos¹. The title does not yet exist, but I will make it exist."

For a long while, Nedioros said nothing, and the two enjoyed a companionable silence.

"And what would the Varaos do?" he asked at last.

"What you have done since the swamp. Tell me when I am wrong."

"My lord is wrong often."

"Then you will be busy," said Cteneux, and for a moment the weathered, hardened lines of his mouth gave way to a smile. These had become increasingly rare, in previous years. "I would rather have a few honest voices than a hundred obedient ones. I did not know the difference until I left Vara, and met you, and I do not wish to forget it."

Nedioros looked at the water. Cteneux, who could read the thoughts of any Sellan of the court by the movement of his brow, saw Nedioros's jaw tighten. He saw his eyes go to the darkness of the west, and thought he understood.

The court would not forgive Nedioros. The lords would smile at him and sharpen their knives. The common folk of the Dwarrowséll would call him a lickspittle and the nobles an upstart, and both would be correct, for there was no road in the world by which a servant could become a lord without being hated for it.

"But it's not the court I fear," said Nedioros.

"Then what?"

Nedioros turned away, towards the water, so that Cteneux could not read his face.

"My wife will not know me. My daughters will not know me. I left a servant and will return as this 'Varaos' of yours. Perhaps I am now worldly, and will survive the court. But what of them?"

He turned back to Cteneux, and there was a strange light in his eyes. For the first time he could remember, Cteneux gazed upon the face of another and found it a sealed.

"I'll accept, of course. Given a few conditions. I will keep my name, and my descendants will be of the House Ne Dioros. You will call me by my name before the court, not by my title."

"Done."

"And you will not strike me when I tell you that you are wrong."

"I have never struck you."

"You have wanted to, my lord. I watch your face."

And Cteneux laughed, a short bark, loud enough that a rower beneath them startled and swore.

1. "Great Chief."

Translator's Notes:
As briefly mentioned during Blackfire Stoneheart, records from the early 5th age are few and far between, and often highly mythological. We'll eventually be getting back into firmer ground, especially as the League expands, but for now this is the best we've got.

This account of the Epic of Cténeux (ne Cténeux Relle Enegul) was assembled from a number of disparate sources, as no single canonical version of the Epic exists. Much of it is obviously fictional, incorrect, and/or anachronistic, but it's a crucial element of Sellan culture nonetheless, and I tried to cover the important bits. A lot got left on the cutting-room table, since I don't wanna be covering Just This Guy for the next year and a half. Even then, even after leaving much of the work as summaries, or cutting segments altogether, Beloved Companion is still going to take two chapters to cover in full.

Cténeux is just that important, for any history of the fifth age. Next time, we'll cover the story of how he claimed the throne of Vara, and his actions as king. It's these acts, more than any other, that forced us to spend so many words on the guy.

No, but "Cabac" is. In-game, you can find the name on one of the crypts in the House of Talor.

 

Dwarf servant of Garaheth???
Hmmm

It's all coming back together

I wonder what the Wynn!Dutch influence that leads to them being called the grootslangs will be.
Also the Grootslangs having a society was not something I expected

Sureeee, definitely no exaggerations here.

I guess Séll was so caught up in its own drama during the 5th age that they weren't yet trying to kill all the orcs yet.

Naga lore!

The first time??!!
(I know this is like a fairytale/mythos in Séllan culture, but that's still crazy.)

This feels pretty unflattering, I am curious whether it's grounded in reality or not.